I am removing myself from any mailing lists or communities that deal with Warren Ellis

[docwebster]

Why, you might ask?

Because of this entry, wherein he states:

"“Cigarettes are my food,” said Frank Zappa. And then he died of testicular cancer. Which came as no surprise to anyone who’d heard him wanking in recording studios for thirty years, but still. Anyone who names his kid Moon Unit is plainly asking for his balls to rot off. Because there is such a thing as karma. Welcome to the concept of universal payback."

Fuck off, Warren.

Comments

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

But I think it wise to remind ourselves that, especially online, everything is a construct that may or may not be related to the actual person behind it.

If the person is engineering it, it can't help but be related.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Hence, may or may not.

It is the job of Warren Ellis to garner reaction. His public persona is, I'm quite sure, well calculated to elicit a very specific response. He seems intent on shocking his audience, who seem to fall into two categories. Those who get the joke and those who don't.

And that's fine. I'm pretty sure that having a large number of people revile him for being a grotesque bastard is a risk he consciously ran.

It's fine if people don't get the joke. But they do need to remember, especially if they've only been presented with a 3 line paragraph as evidence, that everything has a context.

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

Those who get the joke and those who don't.

The trouble with that is that a statement about, say, Zappa's balls rotting off doesn't become a 'joke' just because Warren Ellis is the one saying it. Otherwise, if someone's dad is run over by a bus, and I laugh, then I get the joke and they don't.

It's fine if people don't get the joke.

And it's equally fine if people acknowledge that if context is paramount, then there is no joke, just a tacit agreement between writer and audience to interpret words in a given manner (the humour lying in the dissonance between the expressed extremity and the understood actuality). There's no comforting bottom line of right interpretation here; for all anyone knows, Warren Ellis might have a secret personal agenda of utter spite and venom, and may in his final days be plotting to laugh at everyone who ever laughed with him, claiming that it was never funny and they are all so many stupid arseholes for thinking so.

Context doesn't abnegate responsibility.

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

"Otherwise, if someone's dad is run over by a bus, and I laugh, then I get the joke and they don't."

Well... yeah. Why is this a problem?

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

Do you believe that someone's accidental death can constitute a 'joke'?

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

Do you believe that some things truly AREN'T funny?

Cause lemme tell you: You'd be wrong.

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

You answer my question first, please. :)

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

Oh. Sorry.

Yes.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

I do love a good debate.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

"Get the joke" here is short hand for "understand what it is that Ellis is doing every time he opens his mouth in a public forum in which he is on show, such as livejournal."

So when I say some people "get the joke," I am indicating that some people sign the unwritten user agreement expressing their buy-in to the concept of Ellis.

There is rarely the comfort of a perfectly clear bottom line. That's why the real world is such a sticky, uncomfortable place.

Context doesn't abnegate responsibility, but people also have a responsibility to consume responsibly. As I said, it's fine if people don't want to buy-in to the world of Ellis. But as responsible consumers, they ought also, perhaps, to understand that they are reacting to a product.

Keep in mind, I don't have anything against anyone deciding that Ellis isn't a product of which they want to partake. I just think it important to note that he, in his very manufactured online posturing, is playing a role.

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

So when I say some people "get the joke," I am indicating that some people sign the unwritten user agreement expressing their buy-in to the concept of Ellis.

Buying in is a good analogy. 'Getting the joke' isn't, in my view, because it's derived from much older, more monocultural models of humour in which comprehension rather than sympathy is the deciding factor.

I just think it important to note that he, in his very manufactured online posturing, is playing a role.

Right, but I don't think people should necessarily bother to take that into account. You don't have to buy into the Ellis user agreement. You don't have to accept the I-had-my-fingers-crossed stance. The worst that can come of it is that you are perceived as having have wasted time with something that someone 'didn't really mean', but it rather seems that the alternative is to let such things roll by unheeded because you might be getting trolled.